JENNIFER JOHNSON: WISHES SEDARIS FIT IN HER POCKET >>>
After being introduced, David Sedaris walked on stage wearing a white button down with sleeves rolled just to the elbow and a tie. He looked like an English school boy. This impression had nothing to do with his actual height since from those very perfect second row seats in the Pantages Theatre, he seemed tall and in my mind, all men that I admire are tall, hale and hearty. He carried a folder clutched to his side and began with a piece he’d recently written for The New Yorker on the coming election. The crowd that had waited patiently through a slightly delayed start seemed both to lean forward in anticipation of some presidential nominee bashing and to settle back into their seats and relax for an evening of storytelling. He told of his mother taking him, at age 11, to do her voting for her and nicely slid in the word maverick, a word that hasn’t gotten any love or use really since Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Que predictable laughter. Sedaris appeared to get a good chuckle out of it himself noting, “One who is truly a maverick does not call oneself a maverick.†All heads nodded in agreement. David shared that surprisingly he actually likes going on book tours, this one in promotion of the recently published collection of essays, When You Are Engulfed in Flames. He held a pencil in his hand for the duration of his 90 minutes on stage as though at any moment he was going to start taking notes. When he talked of the "No Photos Please" signs at his book signings I found Sedaris to be so delightful I wanted to put him in my pocket and take him with me everywhere.
The internationally successful writer grabbed a bottle of water from inside his podium and poured it into a drinking glass. I wondered why he didn’t just drink from the bottle, and added this to the other little things I was cataloging in my head that, oddly, made me feel like I knew him as he shuffled through loose papers he’d pulled from the folder. Watching anyone else do this at a live performance, appearance, or reading would have made them seem unprepared or unprofessional - perhaps both. Yet with Sedaris it felt like he was gauging the audience, trying to find that perfect piece to read to fit them right then. It was endearing.
Sedaris read from his diary. About this time, an audience member laughed uproariously catching David by surprise and making him laugh as well. The audience member, it seems, was someone Sedaris had met at a previous show years ago, and become friends with - which he recognized due to the person's distinct laugh.
It is apparent that Sedaris’ highly imaginative, ridiculous, true and frequently heartbreaking content is derived from ordinary commonplace observations and events. As his reading continued I mused at what makes him so appealing- not only to listen to, of course, but to read - and now to watch. After Sedaris finished on stage to much applause, I posed this very question to my companion of the evening. “It is his delivery, his voice. It’s the very way in which he tells it,†they said.
The invitation to pull up a chair and hear the story Sedaris tells - through to the end and then stay for more - is pronounced and powerful, perhaps even more so spoken in his moderately high-pitched, sing-song voice. Listening to him on This American Life has always been entertaining and I adore curling up with a book of his essays, but to see David Sedaris live and watch his facial expressions and gestures as he read and spoke was divine!
LINK: Broadway Center's 2008-09 season
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